good eats: bateau — TIFFANY LIEU

I’m not about celebrating Valentine’s Day on a weeknight – I’m too old for that, ha. Andy and I stayed in on February 14th and I made dinner at home. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love celebrating love, so we planned all our festivities on the weekend. We started weekend by seeing Isn’t it Romantic (our traditional February chick flick) on Saturday and had dinner at Bateau in Capitol Hill on Sunday. Which is what this post is all about!

Bateau is from Chef-owner Renee Erickson. We frequent her Ballard seafood inspired restaurant The Walrus and the Carpenter, so we were excited to get our beef on at her steakhouse. Bateau is a unique experience in that there’s different cuts of steak each night (written daily across a chalkboard) and usually only one type/size of certain cut, based on age (21 days, 42 days, 84 day). So really, getting the earlier reservation is at your benefit if you want the most selection. With that being said, there is a lot to choose from. It can be a bit daunting, but the waitstaff is extremely knowledgable and can definitely help you navigate the cuts and make recommendations from there.

Andy and I got the gracilis cut finished with bone marrow butter. Does that sound amazing? Because it tasted pretty damn amazing. It was a chewier cut than I’m used to for a steak. I’d compare it closer to the texture of a flank steak rather that a tenderloin, but so robust in flavor. The bad news, I took only ONE photo of the steak and it’s blurry, so I didn’t include it here. Honestly, I wish I would’ve gotten more photos than the few above, but once the sun goes down, the lighting is low and dim — which is great for ambiance but not photos.

Andy also read RAVE reviews about their Bateau burger, so we also ordered that to share as well. Verdict: DELICIOUS. The bun, the spread, the meat. A simple but incredible flavor combination. For our starters/sides, we also ordered the Bateau Salad (chickpeas, preserved vegetables, salami cotto, red wine-dijon vinaigrette), Steak Tartare (grain mustard, whey, garlic scapes, fennel, smoked beef fat crackers), and Frites & Aioli (not pictured). I loved the salad and the frites. The steak tartare was a bit aggressive on the mustard and felt to us as though it overpowered all the other flavors.

We finished with Tallow Cake for dessert and French Pressed coffee (I LOVE finishing meals with coffee — even when it’s late, ha). The cake was sweet, wonderful texture, and unlike any other kind of traditional cake I’ve had before, which I really liked. This photo was also blurry and I only took one because I couldn’t wait to eat it. Sorry.

We’d definitely come back again and try some other cuts of steak and do more side-by-side comparison with the aging process. If you’re looking for a nice, steakhouse dinner that’s a little out of the ordinary, I’d definitely recommend trying out Bateau.

Note: We were given a complimentary snack to start the meal. It was a sweet potato chip (first photo), but I can’t recall exactly what was on top of it. All photos were taken on my iPhone XS Max.